Where were they in 1908?

Recently I came across a blog post that raised the question "Where was your family in 1908?" I find this question intriguing for the very reason that draws me to genealogy. I enjoy genealogy not simply as an exercise in collecting as many generations as possible, but even more because it provides a way to know history by imagining my family in a particular time and place. Investigating the historical events and forces that impacted their lives is the real joy.

I began my genealogy research over 30 years ago with my immediate ancestral lines, but soon branched out to in-laws' lines as well. Now I can add Gamez and Villarreal, Consorti and Coglievina to Sanders, Fulmer, Kirkhuff, McNally, Knapp and others, taking me to new corners of the globe for fascinating research.

100 years ago...

• Juan and Enriqueta Villarreal de Gamez were living with their two young sons in the small village of Santa Fe, Villaldama, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The revolution in Mexico, that would drive them north was just two short years away.
• 8 year-old William Allen Fulmer was living in Philadelphia with his parents, William and Hannah, never dreaming that in eight more years he would enlist in the Pennsylvania National Guard and be sent into Mexico in a futile attempt to capture the revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa.
• William Sanders is shown on the 1910 census, living with his parents, Charles (a civil war vet), and Mary (McNally) in Avoca, Pennsylvania and working as an electrician. In 1908, he probably would have just finished school. His future bride, Florence was going to school in nearby Scranton and living with her father William Berge, MD and her mother Anna (Kirkhuff).
• Guido Consorti was an 11 year-old in Ascoli Piceno, Italy. Did he know in 7 more years he would be boarding a ship to immigrate to the United States? His bride to be Domenica Agostini was living in Venarotta, 8 km away.
• 25 year old Pietro Coglievina had just left his wife Nicoletta (Ceglian) and baby daughter behind in Cherso when he left that tumultuous region to seek a better life in the US. Nicoletta and young Mary would wait a decade before enough funds were saved to send for them.